Archive - Jan 2013 - Story

The ex-back of the envelope TARP calculation "chump" become wood-chopper, turned equity portfolio manager has gone full circle and decided his time is better spent serving the public good once again. As the WSJ reports, Neel Kashkari is considering running for office in California. The napkin-laden chrome-dome has seen his funds suffer from spotty performance since their launch - all underperforming the benchmarks. We can't help but think the timing of his announcement odd given his love affair with Apple and tonight's collapse but that would be harsh judgment on the always self-denigrating 39 year-old. Of course, we will hear the impressive nature of him leaving a well-paid job to run for office as his patriotism runs wild; we are less 'believer'. Still, managing to have your name turned into a noun and a verb is no easy task...

After digesting the opinions of the shills, shysters and scam artists, I am ready to predict that I have no clue what will happen during 2013. The fog of uncertainty is engulfing the nation, making consumers hesitant to spend and businesses reluctant to hire or invest. Virtually all of the mainstream media, Wall Street banks and paid shill economists are in agreement that 2013 will see improvement in employment, housing, retail spending and, of course the only thing that matters to the ruling class, the stock market. Even among the alternative media, there seems to be a consensus that we will continue to muddle through and the day of reckoning is still a few years off. Those who are predicting improvements are either ignorant of history or are being paid to predict improvement, despite the overwhelming evidence of a worsening economic climate. The mainstream media pundits, fulfilling their assigned task of purveying feel good propaganda, use the 10% stock market gain in 2012 as proof of economic recovery. The facts prove otherwise... Every day more people are realizing the con-job being perpetuated by the owners of this country. Will the tipping point be reached in 2013? I don’t know. But the era of decisiveness and confrontation has arrived. The existing social order will be swept away. Are you prepared?

Earlier today, we reported that "Assistant Attorney General Admits On TV That In The US Justice Does Not Apply To The Banks" when we commented on last night's PBS special "The Untouchables." Explicitly, we said that it was "Lenny Breuer who made it very clear that when it comes to the concept of justice the banks are and always have been "more equal" than others. He does so in such shocking clarity and enthusiasm that it is a miracle that this person is still employed by the US Department of Justice." As of minutes ago that is no longer the case as his employment contract has been torn up. The WaPo reports, that Lanny A. Breuer is leaving the Justice Department "after leading the agency’s efforts to clamp down on public corruption and financial fraud at the nation’s largest banks, according to several people familiar with the matter....It is not clear when Breuer intends to leave, nor what he plans to do once he departs, but it is certain that the prosecutor’s days in office are winding down, according to people who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter."

AAPL's after-hours loss in market cap is greater than the market cap of one BlackRock, Starbucks, Target, Costco, or Nike. Down almost 9% from yesterday's close, AAPL is trading down to January 2012 levels (off 35% from its highs) and is now notably less capitalized than the entire European banking system. Of course, this has had serious consequences for the major indices that are trading after-hours (and futures). Futures traded down to the day-session lows before closing but QQQ are now trading at 6-day lows in after-hours...and as S&P futures reopen they are gapping down a little more.

The most anticipated earnings release of the quarter has come and it has been a dud, at least judging by the market's expectations and its response. Because while EPS beats just barely (a far cry from the epic EPS beats of Steve Jobs days) coming at $13.81 on expectations of a $13.53 print, revenue outright missed, coming at $54.5 billion on expectations of a $54.9 billion Q1 2013 result. Furthermore, fears about profit margins were proven correct, with total gross profit coming in at $21.1 billion, which alas was 38.6% of revenue, well below the vaunted 40% threshold (as a reference margin was 44.7% a year ago, and 40.0% a quarter ago). And finally, the breakdown by components in the iPhone 5 release quarter was just, well, meh.

One look at the headline numbers, and of course the short interest of Netflix, and one can see why the stock is being squeezed by nearly 30% after hours:

• Q4 Revenue: $945 MM, Exp. $934 MM
• Q4 EPS of $0.13, Exp. $(0.13)
• Q4 domestic contribution margin 18.5%, up from 16.4% in Q3 and 10.9$ in Q4 2011
• Total domestic subscribers 27.15 MM, paying subs: 25.47 MM
  • Forecasts 28.5MM-29.2MM domestic subscribers in Q1
• Sees Q1 Revenues of $1.004 billion to $1.031 billion
• Domestic DVD subs dropped from 8.61 to 8.22 while generating $254MM in revenue and $128MM in profit

In fact, all is either just a little bit better or much better if one looks at the projection set... until one looks at the actual Cash generated by the Business. Behold the Free Cash Flow as reported by the company... no, not AMZN, although it may well be its small cousin.

In the old days, it was Fed via POMO to stocks; but given the new normal, now we have levered POMO to rescue us via vol compression and yet again - today saw risk-assets sliding all night (though admittedly only around 0.5% off highs) only to be rescued by a vol-compressing equity push that started the moment POMO finished. HY credit was tinkered with in the last hour to keep things afloat and of course AAPL soared into its earnings report. The debt-ceiling vote did little to maintain risk-on as CAD weakness (BoC holding off from rate hikes) pulled the USD higher, and hurt risk-on commodities - as Oil plunged on the day. Treasury yields continued to fall - entirely ignoring stocks once again - even though stocks caught down to risk early and ended at new five-year highs on the Dow (thanks almost entirely to IBM). So low volume in stocks (AAPL decent volume), low average trade size in S&P futures, and a disconnected equity market from bonds and FX once again... eyes down for an Apple full-house...

With minutes to go, this is what the world (according to the Google machine) is thinking ahead of Apple's earnings... and what the market expects...

Manhattan: 2770 Broadway NYPD reporting a a Robbery at the Bank Of America same perp that robbed HSBC at 2681 Broadway few. moments ago.

— NY Scanner (@NYScanner) January 23, 2013

Much was made of the first two days of this year as indicative of the great 'meme' that every sell-side rep and commission-taking asset manager has pumped investors full of - the 'great rotation' is here. Finally, rates were rising, growth was here, money on the sidelines was moving, and the supposedly 'dumb money' was rotating from bonds to stocks. However, that is not what happened now is it? 10Y yields are now practically unchanged on the year - even as stocks continue to be bid - with the major divergence beginning on January 11th. There is, however, an alternate 'great rotation' that appears just as powerful - that of covering idiosyncratic AAPL longs and rotating into systemic long equity positions (or covering AAPL-hedging short equity index positions). We suspect, given the volume shifts below, that much of the mysterious buying power in S&P 500 futures is indeed beta-hedge unwinds from massively over-exposed AAPL longs unwinding. With AAPL's earnings due tonight, perhaps this 'rotation' will be over.

While we know that most of the world's billionaires are currently holed up in Davos, Bloomberg has created a visual extravaganza for tracking the great and good of our fair world. The real-time billionaire tracker maps the world's richest people to their country of citizenship, industry, gender, age, and source of wealth. We assume this is the new deal target for our administration - how long before we see these headshots on the back of a set of playing cards?

Hell hath no fury... After an extensive 24,500 word hearing, it would appear we are not really any closer to knowing who knew what when and why we weren't told. However, while the invisible hand of the word-cloud fairy found it useful to highlight the words 'People', 'Think', and 'Know', perhaps it was Hilary's infuriated outburst (clip below) when pressed on what happened that sums it all up in her eyes: "What Difference Does It Make?" It seems that once again 'they' know what is best for us to know and not know... But perhaps the only relevant statement in the entire theatrical presentation was the following: "we don't have assets of any significance right now on the African continent. We're only building that up," which perhaps has something to do with this...

Two days ago we presented the complete hedge fund performance for 2012, in which it was clear that David Einhorn's Greenlight had a Q4 that did not go quite as expected, primarily as a result of AAPL plunging in the quarter, and his hated GMCR soaring, leaving his fund with a 8% return for the year (and -5% for the quarter), well below the general market and some of his far more vocal hedge fund peers. Those curious just what it is that caused this underperformance, here is the complete Greenlight Q4 letter discussing not only why Einhorn is doubling down in AAPL, why he still likes Marvell, Computer Sciences and Vodafone, as well as his continuing negative outlook on Iron ore, and the Yen. He closed out positions in WLP, MCO, DIA, ITX and PBI. In summary: "At quarter end, the largest disclosed long positions in the Partnerships were Apple, Cigna, General Motors, gold and Vodafone Group. The Partnerships had an average exposure of 114% long and 70% short."

As we reported previously, the stock of the oldest bank in the world, Italy's venerable Banca Monte Dei Paschi of Siena, was halted in early trade after plunging on news that the bank had engaged in not only the previously reported secret derivative transaction with Deustche Bank to hide losses before a prior government bailout, but yet another derivative transaction, this time with Nomura, signed three years ago and whose intention, ironically, was to reduce 2012 earnings by some €220 million.What the ultimate purpose of these deals was is still unclear and will likely become apparent eventually, however it will likely require the former Chairman of the bank, Giuseppe Mussari, who served as Chair from 2006 until April 2012, and who officially quit his post as Italy's top banking lobbyist after today's revelations, to testify. One person whom he may testify against is none other than current ECB head Mario Draghi, who just happened to be the head of the Bank of Italy from 2006 to 2011, or the entire period when Monte Paschi was engaging in what increasingly appears to have been fraudulent activity.But don't worry: just like in the US, nobody of signfiicance is about to go down for this "glitch" which is about to be blamed on some poor mid-level shmuck, and which nobody in the senior level management had any idea about, and certainly not the person who ultimately would have had to give the green light: the current head of the ECB.

No sooner had the House got its 212 votes to pass (with 109 Democrats voting against) the debt-ceiling extension "No Budget, No Pay" bill then Silver and US equities began to rise. At the same time, WTI started to crack lower. Now it is over to Harry Reid and the promised 'smooth sailing' through the Senate. As a reminder for all those ebullient Dow watchers, IBM's gains today account for 76 Dow points - which means the remaining 29 names of the Dow are -3 points! The brief risk-on rally is already fading...priced-in? or doesn't matter?